Fine-tuning Prayer

Prayer is desire. Your desires are known by God, the divine all-knowing Mind. God knows your desires before you do. Trust God to formulate and develop your faithful desires before they become words and actions.

It’s generally accepted in the field of religion that the tradition of prayer or meditation may reduce stress, clear the mind, or bring about healing. In the field of science, studies on the effects of prayer have occurred for more than a century. Although today, technology is used to measure the brain’s reactions to prayer, test results generate more questions. How many people need to be praying? Can prayer be offered from a distance? Is prayer a form of manipulation? What kind of prayers are offered?

In divine Science, prayer is mental. It’s not a cause or effect, but images forth the cause and effect of the Divine, God. The misleading assumption that 2 happens after 1, then 2 must happen because of 1, is not to be overlooked. Healing doesn’t happen because of prayer even if healing occurred after prayer.

The test of prayer lies in the answer to these questions: Do we love our neighbor better? Do we pray and give no evidence by living consistently with the prayer?

We can’t stare at a mathematical problem on the screen and pray for the principle of mathematics to work out the solution. Shall we ask the divine Principle of all goodness to do what’s already been done? Only one thing can be done. Benefit yourself of God’s rule to receive Love’s blessing, which allows you to resolve life’s issues.

We have Jesus as an example of a living prayer. Following Jesus isn’t easy but is doable, despite the devilish self and world. We can model the divine nature. We can experience divine approval even if our peers disapprove. We can experience the divine faith that all good is possible to God.

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What about my own personality?

I’m still learning how to worship God.

It helps for me to observe and think about how other people worship God, especially people who lived or live spiritual lives. But I remind myself not to get absorbed in their personalities because that would blur my own worshipfulness of God.

For example, the personality of Christ Jesus, which is only hear-say, appears to be calm. And so I try to be calm, and then worship God. But, I’m sort of a hyper-person, so it really doesn’t work. And that’s okay. Because I can’t really worship God through a specific human personality, calm or hyper.

I caught this idea when reading this from 21st Century Science and Health:

“We worship spiritually only as we cease to worship materially. The devotion to Spirit is the soul of spirituality. Worshipping through the medium of human personalities is not productive. Human-made rituals are but types and shadows of true worship. “The true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.” (John)

Now, I watch my efforts to worship God, a bit closer. Am I doing it through my human personality? Or, am I worshipping God through spirit and truth?

 

 

The Forgotten Prayer

Wake up, pray, wash laundry, get children to school, cook, pay a bill, wipe down the bathroom, interview an official and write an article, call to make a dentist appointment, care for the cats and dog, change a lightbulb, errands, get children from school, help with homework, chat with husband, more laundry, pray, fall into bed at 10:45 p.m. Rats, I forgot to pull the garbage can out to the curb.

The can will stink all week and overflow with more garbage.

Before sleeping, I wonder: is there a prayer I’m forgetting? Or not even thinking of?

The question of a forgotten prayer stays with me. For days. Weeks. Months.

As for the unforgotten prayers to love God and my neighbor, and for healing of sickness and sin, they bear fruit. Faith grows into understanding and I see God as reality. I see anything unlike God as unreality, illusion. God didn’t make hate or sickness and I pray that my human mind yields to reality.

It’s easier to yield to reality when confirming the unreality of decline, loss, aging, chaos, and forgetfulness. I practice expanding love, expressing gratitude for all I have, and maturing wisdom, order, and knowledge-with-no-end.

Then I read a prayer championed by Mary Baker Eddy about health-illusion. What is a health-illusion?

The illusion of healthy physical bodies. The illusion of a strong mind. The illusion of a healthy bank account. The illusion of successful human beings.

We read in 21^st Century Science and Health, “Bear in mind, it is as necessary for a health-illusion, as for an illusion of sickness, to be instructed out of itself into the spiritual understanding of what constitutes health.”

Remember to pray the prayer that transcends healthy measurable units. For example, notice the uncomplaining organs and admit the illusion of uncomplaining physical organs. But don’t stop there. Confirm and understand Soul-sense, a sense of uncomplaining forgiveness and spiritual courage.

Remember to pray the prayer that transcends a healthy bank account. For instance, deny the comfort that comes from money. Confirm and share the riches of open-mindedness, spiritual comfort, and unbiased actions.

Remember to pray the prayer that transcends successful human beings. Avoid the tendency to adore a human. Stop living in past successes. Worship God, Truth. Practice truthfulness.

Too often, prayers are only directed at sickness, loss and fear, which is fine, but those prayers are more effective when also directed at health-illusions.

Health is spiritual. Universal. A force. Sustained by God, Spirit. Health is made of honesty, mercifulness, integrity, and joy.

From Romans 12:  ^“Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.  Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.  Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.  Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.”

¹⁴ Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. ¹⁵ Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. ¹⁶ Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. ¹⁷ Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. ¹⁸ If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

Traditions

Traditions can be healthy. They can be used to advance spiritual good. We have an example of this in the Bible, when Jesus dealt with the ritual of baptism.

Jesus came to John the Baptist, at the River Jordan, to be baptized. John resisted. He felt Jesus should baptize him instead. Jesus said, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”[1]

At this point, baptism became more meaningful. It became a mindful experience. John or Jesus weren’t the primary figures, God was. John and Jesus embraced humility and acknowledged a love and reverence for a Higher Power.

The event in turn was marked with peace and a powerful message from Spirit. “And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.’”[2]

Rituals are unavoidable. We eat, we go to jobs, we participate in ceremonies, and we bend to hierarchies. As long as traditions don’t become ego trips or mechanical nonsense, a higher ideal can infuse these practices with holy purposes.

[1] Matthew 3:15

[2] Matthew 3:16-17; Mark 1:10-11; Luke 3:22; John 1:32-34

How to know what we need to know

I meet brilliant people, but find they are brilliant only in a specific field. They can even be dull in another area in life. This is because the human mind is limited. It can’t know everything. It can’t see everything.

So, we meditate. We take in more information. We study to learn. Yet, the human mind is still limited, because there is never an end to discovery.

Spiritual knowledge allows me to recognize the infinite Mind. I don’t pray to know what infinite Mind knows.

I pray to affirm that infinite Mind knows everything, and knows exactly what it needs to know at any given moment, and that I reflect that knowing.

My human mind yields to those epiphanies that keep life meaningful and fun.

This is natural. I see nature reflecting the all-knowing. Animals just know how to live.

The Vision of Revisions

Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own. (Prov. 3:5, The Message)

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. (Prov. 3:5, KJV)

Trust in the Lord with all your heart; don’t rely on your own intelligence. (Prov. 3:5 Common English Bible)

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. (Prov. 3:5, Revised Standard Version)

Cling steadfastly to God and His idea, if the illusion of sickness or sin tempts you. Let nothing but His likeness abide in you. Let neither fear nor doubt overshadow your clear sense and calm trust, that the recognition of Being—as it eternally is—can destroy any painful sense of, or belief in, that which Being is not.(Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy’s 1894 copyrighted Edition)

When the illusion of sickness or sin tempts you, cling steadfastly to God and His idea. Allow nothing but His likeness to abide in your thought. Let neither fear nor doubt overshadow your clear sense and calm trust, that the recognition of life harmonious—as Life eternally is—can destroy any painful sense of, or belief in, that which Life is not. (Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy’s 1908 copyrighted Edition)

When the curse of sickness or sin tempts you, cling steadfastly to God and Spirit’s idea. Allow nothing but Soul’s likeness to prevail in your thought. Do not let fear or doubt eclipse your clear sense and calm trust in Truth. (21^st Century Science and Health, copyrighted 2006)